December 2011
1 post
3 tags
Kool-Aid vs. Lemonade
What separates an employee from a founder? Is it the amount of hours one works in a week or is it how much a person cares about their work/business? My answer would be both. There’s no doubt about it that a lot of people work a ton of hours and they may even enjoy their work, but how many people truly care? I know a lot of founders and they usually feel a lot more passionate about their...
November 2011
1 post
Startup Lessons for Beginners (Learned the Hard...
Startups are hard. If there is one piece of advice that will help you overcome, it’s learn from your mistakes. That way, fail or succeed, you will always be moving forward.
Connectsy was a mobile app my Co-Founder and I launched with plans to take on the world. A year later, Connectsy is no more. Here are some of the lessons learned from that experience.
Understand the Problem
When we started...
July 2011
1 post
1 tag
Know When to Fold 'em
When do you say enough is enough and shut your company down? I’m all for passion and hustle, but at a certain time you have to be willing to call it quits. There’s likely a ton of signs that are saying you should give up and my fear is a lot of entrepreneurs ignore them. I’m a big believer that you should never let someone tell you, you can t do something. You can do whatever...
June 2011
1 post
5 tags
A Good Idea
It’s amazing how much you can learn in one 2 hour meeting with a genius. I highly recommend talking to people smarter than you, or at least more experienced. It still blows me away the value I get out of a meeting with someone of this caliber. Seek these people out and meet with as many as you can.
Sometimes you’re left with a ton of ideas. Some are likely good, some maybe great, but...
May 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Making it Happen
Startups are hard. Most of you know this and if you don’t, you’re not working hard enough. There’s a ton of work that goes into every business you see. From early morning donut making to late night hacking and hustling. Hard work is only the beginning.
How much are you willing to sacrifice? Will you be able to give up your favourite hobby? Watch less or no TV or sports? How far...
Trust Your Gut
My latest venture has inspired this post. There’s no doubt in my mind that Hipsell has the potential to become a household name and be very successful. Let’s rewind a little shall we? My previous venture Connectsy was definitely a cool idea, and at a certain point I believed it would be the next Foursquare or bigger. However, without even knowing it, there was doubt. I wasn’t...
April 2011
1 post
4 tags
Hack, Hustle & Flow
Sprout Up just passed and it’s getting better every month. Micah Baldwin was a guest speaker and he f-ing killed it. His #followfriday story was wicked but my favourite thing he said was, the perfect startup team is one hacker and one hustler. Part of my reason for loving this is, the Hipsell team, is that team. When it comes down to it, Aron is a hacker and I’m a hustler. I have an...
March 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Startups are Beautiful
Who loves startups? I do, I do. The startup life is great, isn’t it? I’ve only been blogging for a short while (10th post) and only started using Twitter last year. I’ve been a consultant and hired gun for some time now but nothing is better than going all in on a venture.
You can read all about my last venture Connectsy here. Let’s just say my Co-Founder and I learned a...
5 tags
Post Money
Your first question might be, what do you mean by post money? What I really mean is post cash out of some kind. I explained the importance of Co-Founders being on the same page and sharing similar values in a previous post. I will now take that a step further.
Defrex and I have been working with each other for around 2 years now. Although we’ve really only had one serious project together...
February 2011
3 posts
5 tags
Bet on the Horse, not the Race
I heard this saying from Jason recently on This Week in Startups and it really stuck. When investing in someone or something, where is the true value? I believe it’s in the person, more so then the product. Am I saying it’s people first, and idea second? No, I’m not. What I’m really saying is, it’s the human being that will eventually win the race.
It may not be the...
4 tags
All In
My biz partner and I have been in the ideation stage for around a month now. We’ve been hammering ideas and talking to a lot of people. We were really enjoying the customer discovery process, but now we’re a little fatigued, and frustrated.
We’ve done a ton of brainstorming sessions, and have killed over 10 ideas. Some of the ideas we thought were too crazy, too small and some...
4 tags
Hustle and Gumption
I’m not sure most people and some entrepreneurs for that matter know what it takes to live the startup life. Startup living is a lifestyle and you need to be hustling 24/7. You better have some gumption and be able to get up off the canvas when you’re down and out.
I’ve always known I was an entrepreneur and have always worked hard. Aside from when I had salmonella poisoning and was out for...
January 2011
5 posts
Pitch vs. Pitch Deck
When my Co-Founder and I started out on our journey to seek investment we thought that we absolutely needed a kick ass pitch deck. For awhile I felt like building this deck was my full time job and really it was. While my partner in crime definitely helped out a lot he needed to be coding so I had to make it happen.
The funny thing is outside of showing it to our friends and family and lawyers we...
7 tags
The Startup Community
About a year or so ago, I didn’t really know anyone in the startup community. I’d been searching for a Co-Founder for several years and finally found the perfect match. When it came time for us to launch our first venture together, we really had no clue that a great community already existed.
We talked about starting a meetup or a tech club of some kind to stir things up and wondered...
7 tags
Desperately Seeking a Co-Founder
Finding a Co-Founder, or even a developer for that matter, can be really tough given your circumstances. There’s no doubt that a ton of extremely talented developers exist out there, but if they’re that talented, their likely busy working on a cool startup themselves or working at a cool company.
Over 10 years ago I made a decision that I regret now, that was to get into...
7 tags
Ideas are Cheap
The title of this post is a direct quote from one of my favourite guys in the startup scene. I can’t believe how much truth there is to this statement. A year or so ago, I believed ideas ruled the world, now, I recognize the importance of a great idea, but how do you know its great? Even the greatest idea means nothing unless it’s in the right hands. Execution should be right up...
7 tags
Wired a Certain Way
This is my first blog post and I plan to become an active blogger. I plan to blog mostly about entrepreneurship and tech with some occasional food, music, movies and sports talk worked into the mix.
To kick it off, I’ve chosen to share my thoughts on the entrepreneur. I believe entrepreneurs are a special kind of human being and are wired a certain way. What I mean by this is, whether your born...